Manchester City have beaten Arsenal
at the Emirates tonight, and while we were never favourites for the match, we will certainly feel hard done-by.
Our side started the match brightly, and despite being forced to make two changes to personnel inside the opening 20 minutes, we had been the better side.
Granit Xhaka found himself replaced by Ceballos thanks to injury, before David Luiz replaced Mari, and from then-on the game was turning against us.
City were really beginning to grow into match, earning more and more possession in key areas, as well as getting in behind our back four more often than you would like.
It was almost as if Pep Guardiola saw Luiz head onto the pitch, and said ‘OK, lets go!’…
Shortly before half-time we find ourselves behind. A long-ball is failed to be cleared by the Brazilian defender, only for it to bounce into the box into the path of Raheem Sterling, who places the ball past the German shotstopper and into the left side of the net.
The break didn’t do us any favours either, as we continued to be on the back foot in the second-half, and then bad turns to worse. Luiz loses ground on Mahrez who is running down the right-flank, and the former Chelsea defender literally grapples with the Algerian before eventually running into him to take him down. Red card and a penalty…
Kevin De Bruyne sends Leno the wrong way and we can all-but write off the match from this point onwards.
We endured a tough 40 minutes after this, despite some of our players clearly putting in the effort, there was just no hope of getting anywhere after that unfortunately.
City closed off the game with a third goal, thanks to Phil Foden leeching onto a rebound off the post, but the biggest incident after the penalty was not a nice one.
Eric Garcia collided with his own goalkeeper Ederson and stayed down, and was eventually stretchered off the pitch. Hopefully the young defender is OK…
So Arsenal were let down by one of our supposed experienced heads, and now we have an even bigger mountain to climb.
Do Arsenal need to cull the likes of Luiz? Does he have more bad games than good?
Patrick
